


the only one

by 3amscribbles



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 03:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10823094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amscribbles/pseuds/3amscribbles
Summary: ”Aaron,” Robert hums. A soft plea that doesn’t echo through the silence, because there’s someone present to soak it up, now. The target that he’s been aiming it at all along, finally back within reach. Aaron’shere, curled around his bag in the passenger seat and snuffling into it with leftover tears still clinging to his nostrils since their reunion. “Aaron, we’re here.”Or: how the day of Aaron’s release from prison would have gone ifIgot to write it (and write a certain blonde in various hatsoutof it).





	the only one

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely out of character, but then again, so's a lot that goes on in the actual show, so... *shrugs*

”Aaron,” Robert hums. A soft plea that doesn’t echo through the silence, because there’s someone present to soak it up, now. The target that he’s been aiming it at all along, finally back within reach. Aaron’s _here_ , curled around his bag in the passenger seat and snuffling into it with leftover tears still clinging to his nostrils since their reunion. “Aaron, we’re here.”

Aaron blinks awake. Is made up of soft eyelashes and a disoriented frown as he takes in his surroundings, visibly exhaling at the visual reminder of where he is now – of who he’s _with_. He looks exhausted, still, beyond the just-woke-up haze that makes his eyes look glazed over with lingering dreams. His skin isn’t quite as speckled with colour and something’s off with his posture even after he’s relaxed back into the seat. Weights collected over the past weeks inside, perched upon shoulders that look confused within their confines of Aaron’s suit.

“Huh. We are,” Aaron marvels. _Marvels_ , because there’s a hint of a smile tugging at his lips, addressing home with a fondness in his gaze that he’ll never admit to out loud. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“It’s okay,” Robert assures him. Thinks that he’s just so happy to see Aaron resting, comfortable in his presence, but ends up adding, “As long as you promise to do it again in a literal sense tonight, you’re excused.”

Aaron snorts, slowly blossoming into tentative happiness in this car, in this village, in front of this pub. “You’re going soft, Mr Dingle. Not your usual, hard bargain, that.”

Robert slips his hands off the steering wheel, down into his lap. They’re still a bit clammy; still a bit restless with the desperation to _hold_. “Maybe I’ve just got a soft spot for you.”

“ _Sap_ ,” Aaron proclaims, but leans into Robert’s palm where it’s now landed gently on his cheek nonetheless. His eyes are skies, sparkling in the afternoon. His stubble is rough, speaking of reality. Of the two of them right here in it, in fancy interior and with hearts on their sleeves. “They’re all in there, aren’t they?”

Robert forces his gaze away from Aaron’s face to let it follow the direction of Aaron’s indicating nod. The Woolpack, tall and proud to have him back, with evidence inside to show for it. “The lot of them. They’re so happy to have you back – we all are.”

“I _know_ ,” Aaron breathes out. He fits his hand over Robert where it still clings to his face – tugs it down and laces their fingers together in yet another act of unusually gentle affection. “And I’m happy to be here, it’s just – you know what my family’s like. I could use a minute or two before the madness begins.”

Robert grins. He feels like he’ll mirror each and every one of Aaron’s expression for weeks to come simply because he _can_ , because they’re there to savour through each shift of scenery and mood and he’ll no longer have to flee into daydreams to admire them. Aaron’s here in all his expressive glory, and now he’s looking at Robert as though there’s no other home for him.

There is, though, Robert reminds them both through a suggestion of, “The Mill. Want to see the progress?”

“There’s been some?” Aaron asks from under a cocked eyebrow, full of joyful sarcasm while his shoulders wobble under the comment, shivering into a better posture as though he’s starting to find his way back to himself. “You and Adam haven’t just messed it all up?”

Robert ignores the comment. Turns the key in the ignition once more and slips his hand out of Aaron’s just long enough to get the car back into movement, telling him, “Liv’s helped a lot. We’ve gotten a lot of painting done downstairs. It was a bonding experience.”

“ _You_ painted?” Aaron’s radiating disbelief, busy eyeing Robert up and down when Robert chances a look at him. “Wearing _what_? You don’t even own a regular t-shirt!”

Robert thinks about his jacket. About the ironed shirt he’d worn beneath. The watch on his wrist and Liv’s related, dubious expression to speak of her brother’s presence when he first grabbed a brush. He shifts a little in his seat, feeling his chest swell a few sizes in the most familiar of ways when he slows the car to a stop outside of their future home and mutters, “Nothing I do on my own gets nearly as messy as when I do it with you.”

Clothes. Sheets. Love. Life. Weddings. It’s all a mess with Aaron. He loves it; it’s embedded in the sudden thickness of his voice and in the way his heart beats pointedly to emphasise it. In his eyes when he turns the car off a second time and glances back over at his husband.

Aaron’s grinning again – barely a stain of his troubles on the surface at this moment, shoved deep below by the sheer happiness of being reunited for now. Love and kindness and sarcasm shimmering in those skies when he says, “Oh _really?_ Should I make a list of all the messes you’ve made on your own? Boots of cars and blackmailing material and –“

Robert kisses him – has curled infatuated fingers around the loose knot of Aaron’s tie and tugged him close over the gearshift. The list dies out; tears itself apart and flutters away in a hurricane of emotions in the seam of Aaron’s lips. Mere sounds are falling out from between them, now, pressing desperately to Robert’s to be devoured, and Aaron’s not the only one who’s finally home again.

“If it’s not messed up, it’s not us,” he reminds Aaron, smoothing his hand down along the tie, over chest and abdomen and the infuriating fabric of the shirt.

He kisses Aaron again, swiftly, but it’s enough to tell that Aaron’s smiling again. A smug curve of that mouth that makes Robert’s hands tremble with the need to draw him even closer.

“Mhmm,” Aaron exhales, pulling away just to spite Robert’s hands. “So you and Adam _have_ messed it all up.”

It makes Robert dissolve in an amused sigh. Feigned exasperation put into a headshake as he leans back and undoes his seatbelt. “Why don’t you just go inside and have a look for yourself?”

 

;

 

Aaron is the entire moon, now. The sky has escaped from his eyes and settled in the dark blue upon the walls, and Aaron’s entire being glows from the centre of the room. A celestial being in this mundane workplace of bare walls and unfurnished corners, lighting it up gently and making it feel like a spot worth living in. Their bedroom, coming to life in his presence.

His eyes aren’t quite recovering anymore – don’t rid themselves of the redness now that they’ve been shedding tears once more, but the guilt of not being around lately has died out on Aaron’s lips for now. Has been silenced by the reassurance of Robert’s determined words and a loving hand rubbing circles along a side and back, over a spine and that thick neck. He still keeps a thumb running through the soft hair at the nape, making Aaron shiver under his touch.

The way Aaron clears his throat doesn’t cover that up – doesn’t rid Robert of the lingering sensation of his husband's trembling, but it’s followed up with a splash of reality. A lukewarm startle of, “So. The bed.”

Robert forces himself not to look away when Aaron aims his red-rimmed gaze at him. Swallows beneath the collar of his shirt and tries to feign confusion when replies with, “What about it?”

“Well,” Aaron drawls, eyebrows sarcastically raised and voice already edging on fed-up. “It’s _here_ , for starters.”

“They delivered it early,” Robert says. A truth to cover up the additional information that he doesn’t want to give away even though he knows that it must be written all over his face, and that Aaron knows him well enough to see right through him even if it isn’t. “No use in leaving it unpacked when it’s already here, is there?”

Aaron twists under Robert’s touch, but not away. He simply tilts his head up a little, smugness along his lash lines as he blinks. “You slept here.”

Robert swallows again, against the pressure in his throat – the knot of truth that is trying to wiggle its way up and stain his tongue a hundred shades of infatuated. Looking at Aaron makes it harder not to break open, so he shifts his gaze; shifts his thumb some more over Aaron’s neck and thrives in the sensation, the ability to do so, to touch and cherish, and... what’s a little bit of embarrassment to pay for finally having Aaron back with him?

“I couldn’t _do_ it anywhere else,” he exclaims. Always loud and defensive. In love, too, though, and showing it by locking his gaze with Aaron’s once more. “Everywhere I’ve slept in this village, I’ve slept with you. The pub. Vic’s. The bloody _barn_. This was the only place where I could turn to face your side of the bed and not see the contours of you quite so clearly.”

Aaron’s looking at him with wonder in his eyes – the same kind that always shimmers back at Robert when he’s being this honest, this open with what he feels. It makes pride blossom in his chest – makes it swell and swell and swell because Aaron’s smiling that half-smile at him, slowly finding his way back to happiness after what must have been hell for him in prison. Robert’s _causing_ that – causing something _good_.

“We could – “Aaron breathes out, “—before we have to go to the pub, right?”

“Introduce the new bed to your contours?” Robert clarifies, barely breathing.

Aaron snorts out anticipation and hints of nervous energy. “Mine. Yours. _Ours_.”

Robert slides his hand forward, cupping it under Aaron’s chin to tilt his head up just right. Says, “It better get used to us,” and leans in to fit his own mouth to Aaron’s yet again. Another time. He won’t ever get enough. Won’t ever see enough of Aaron in a suit, either, yet picks his man out of it as though their lives depend on it, clumsy-fingered and stumbling over his own breath before it lands in desperate heaps in Aaron’s mouth.

He licks after it; runs his tongue over Aaron’s and his hands down over Aaron’s stomach, committing the noises Aaron makes to memory while he tugs the hem of Aaron’s shirt out of his trousers and flicks buttons open.

Aaron sinks down on the bed willingly, spreading his legs accommodatingly to let Robert kneel between them while his breathing comes out in gasps – in heavy draws of air so unlike the desperate sobs from earlier that Robert nearly whimpers with admiration for the man that he gets to call his.

_Nearly_ , because he chooses to silence himself instead. Trails kisses over each new bit of skin that he exposes as he undoes the final buttons of Aaron’s shirt and throws the sides of it apart and out of the way. Aaron’s fingers land Robert’s hair; Robert’s at the next infuriating button of Aaron’s slacks while his teeth graze teasingly over the skin below Aaron’s navel.

Aaron’s fingers curl before Robert gets to his target; tug up and away and Robert has no choice but to follow, barely keeping himself from pouting at the loss, the deprivation.

“Can’t believe I’m saying this,” Aaron presses out, breathy and harsh in the quiet of the room, “but we don’t have time for that. Do we have any lube?”

Robert breathes for a moment; takes that moment to take Aaron in and admire him once again. The state of him, dishevelled already, with lips begging to be kissed over and over. He pushes himself up and does so; kisses Aaron once, twice, three times swiftly and once more until his breath runs out, before he reaches for his overnight bag below the bed.

Aaron quirks an eyebrow when Robert pulls a bottle of lube out from it. “Didn’t just _sleep_ here at night then, did you?”

Robert’s gotten his hand on a condom, too, and flings it somewhat carelessly in the direction of Aaron’s face to show his own brand of sarcasm when he grunts, “Put it there this morning, you idiot. In case you’d want to stay here tonight – get away from the crowd.”

Aaron’s response is to tug Robert up from the floor and over himself, breathing an _I love you_ against Robert’s lips that’s so full of gratitude and love that the impact makes Robert shiver – makes him loose his balance and crash down over his husband's body. Aaron’s there, though, catching him with a grin stretching his lips and pressing beautifully against Robert's while his hands wander down to work on the zipper of Robert’s trousers.

They come off, eventually, after fumbling and a reluctance to stop kissing each other to see what they’re doing. Robert urges Aaron further up on the bed, away from the foot of it so that he can sprawl prettily all over the mattress. His own clothes are removed in a stretched out moment of silence and admiration while he’s back on the floor again, standing next to the bed with fragments of his breath caught in his throat and his heart beating its love from rooftops in other countries. When he’s done, exposed, trembling a little in the slight cold of the house, he leans in over the bed and tugs the final piece of clothing down and off of Aaron's body, revealing hips and thighs and cock. Revealing _everything_ , because even the emotions are there, splayed out in wrists and heart and the expression on Aaron’s face.

He opens Aaron up slowly. Is careful. Listens to every little hitch of Aaron’s breathing and catalogues them all to make sure that he interprets them right while he presses kisses to the inside of Aaron’s knee; the thigh; the crevice between thigh and groin. His fingers are grateful to _hold_ again; to have Aaron’s leg to press into while the other traces a hipbone and devours the trembles of Aaron’s body with a greed he didn’t know he could possess.

“Robert,” whispered into the silence, into the radiating heat that clouds above them. “ _Rob_. Robert, _please_.”

It’s softer than anything they’ve done before; not just the plea but the movements. The re-synchronization of hearts and actions that have lead them here, so grateful to be in each other’s arms again that it seeps out and exposes itself in every touch.

Robert collects the soft whisper of his name in a special file in his mind; something to cherish forever, just like the moment when he leans up and over Aaron’s head and catches the purest mix of emotions in those eyes. Lust. Trust. Love piercing right through it all. He leans down and kisses lips open until eyes fall closed – pulls fingers out while he brushes an apology to Aaron’s hip, and admires the way Aaron’s expression shifts under each of his movements. Admires it even more when that head is nodding, urging him to go on with soundless pleas and a breathless display of sensation as soon as he presses himself inside.

It doesn’t last long. Lasts forever and through a few blinks all at once, because Aaron’s _here_. Home. Back for Robert to look at, to breathe in and push into while Aaron digs fingers into his back to say that he wants _more_ , that it’s _good_ , that there’s nothing else in the universe but _this_. Them, in love. Acting like it, with soft kisses to counter the force of Robert’s thrusts – with soothing tongues over stinging lips, and breaths like band-aids over patches of skin that have felt cold and lonely for too many weeks.

Robert comes with a muffled cry of Aaron’s name, torn apart by white hot heat and put together by the mere whisper of his own name against the side of his head, the tightening of Aaron around him and the traces of Aaron’s arousal splayed over his hand. He’s dimly aware of Aaron’s lips against his temple – fully aware of how in love he is as he hums into it and burrows into the crook of Aaron’s neck. At home.

“No,” Aaron says. Firm. Clearer through the fog as he presses yet another kiss to Robert’s skin. His hands tremble a little, battling to keep what little energy they’ve got left as they scramble for Robert’s skin. “Pub first, sleep later.”

“On me,” Robert manages to say. Looks up, too, to steal another glance at his husband and make sure that the expression on that face is one of understanding – one that’s catching on to the bit of conversation that Robert has traced back to. “You promised.”

Aaron snorts. Is sarcastic and full of wonder and entirely wonderful. Promises, “On you. Literally.”


End file.
